Idaho attorney general appeals court order allowing abortions to protect health, prevent self-harm

Idaho judge ruling allows abortion if it protects mother’s health, prevents self-harm

Labrador argued that U.S. District of Idaho Judge B. Lynn Winmill’s ruling defied the U.S. Supreme Court decision Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, which overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, according to a press release from Labrador’s office. 

The legal battle stems from a lawsuit from Dr. Stacy Seyb, a Boise maternal-fetal medicine specialist, who argued that Idaho’s abortion bans were unconstitutional because they didn’t allow abortions to protect a mother’s health, her future fertility or if her mental health put her at risk of self-harm. 

Labrador said Winmill’s ruling “has replaced Idaho’s law with his own abortion standard,” and that Idaho’s law does allow for pregnant patients with medical emergencies to be treated in the state.

“Dobbs made clear that abortion policy belongs to the people and their elected state representatives, not the judiciary,” Labrador said in a press release. “We have appealed to the Ninth Circuit, and we will fight until this ruling is reversed and Idaho’s law is restored.”

Seyb is represented by attorneys from the Lawyering Project and Legal Voice.

“The Attorney General’s utter disregard for the health and welfare of pregnant Idaho residents is appalling,” Stephanie Toti, executive director of the Lawyering Project, said in an email. “We look forward to continuing to litigate this case with the goal of making it safer for people to be pregnant in Idaho.”

Idaho’s criminal abortion ban allows abortion to prevent the death of the mother, to treat ectopic or molar pregnancies, and in cases of rape and incest in the first trimester, if there’s been a police report filed. Doctors who provide abortions that don’t fall within those exceptions face two to five years in prison and revocation of their medical license. 

Idaho also has a civil-enforcement ban on abortion, allowing family members to sue abortion providers for a minimum of $20,000 if an abortion occurs after six weeks or after fetal heartbeat activity is detected. 

Winmill’s 81-page decision said the U.S. Constitution protects access to abortion in certain high-risk cases that went beyond the exemptions outlined in Idaho’s ban. 

A voter-led initiative will appear on November ballots this year that, if approved, would overturn Idaho’s abortion ban and enumerate protections to women’s reproductive healthcare and privacy into law. 

Labrador’s appeal also argues that Winmill’s decision should not be applied to every doctor in the state, but only Seyb because he is the one who challenged the law. He said the Winmill’s decision violates the 2025 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that said federal courts cannot in most cases issue “universal injunctions,” which broadly block enforcement of laws for everyone, not just the parties to the lawsuit. 

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